Quote:
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...without Frodo's gentle guidance, would Sam have let Gollum live?
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Chile' O' the 7th Age - Dang! I love your posts!
Regarding the above quote: that's an angle I had never considered before. I had always cast Sam in the same light of many of the "good ol' boy" Midwestern males I grew up with: having an inate, gentle nature that they try to hide from others in fear of being considered a "wimp".
So I would dismiss Sam's threats to end Gollum's life as so much bluster. I just didn't think he had it in him to kill without an extraordinarily good reason. And he certainly would have never struck someone down in the "heat of the moment".
I never thought about how much Sam would take the lessons of Frodo (and Gandalf) to heart. Silly of me, really: one doesn't inspire such respect and love in a person just by being a "good employer". Perhaps Frodo is the father Sam
wishes he had always had.
For good or ill, Merry and Pippin seemed to have found their own father-figures in Boromir and Aragorn. Merry says: "You won't rescue...the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo." This, to me, has always been one of the saddest lines in the story. It represents not only the loss of innocence in the younger Hobbits, but also a complete misreading of Frodo's mind set! Frodo resists to the end the shedding of blood in the Shire not out of fear or timidity, but because he knows killing without thought is an action that can never be recalled, and can lead to disasterous consequences.
Had Merry or Pippin been at the Cracks of Doom, after surviving the siege of Gondor and the Pelennor Fields, the choice to slay Gollum would have been patently obvious to them. And completely wrong.
(Sorry this post has nothing to do with anyone falling in love. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] )
[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]